


Fairytale

by stackcats



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 01:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stackcats/pseuds/stackcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master tells a bedtime story, and the Doctor tries to work out how much of it he should believe</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairytale

He sets the book down beside the bed. It’s habit, or significant in some way, but you haven’t worked it out yet because he doesn’t need the book. He never opens the covers, never refers to it, never even looks at it after he puts it down. Perhaps it’s a safety blanket of some sort. A reminder that the words he speaks are nothing but stories; fairytales and legends from all over the galaxy. Perhaps, without it, he can’t tell what is true and what’s made-up.

You’ve never seen him quite like this before. He’s been mad to some extent for most of his life, but it always used to make sense. His desire for power, his ruthlessness, his hatred for you and everything else were, at the very least, concepts you could understand. But now…

Now, you suspect he is going truly insane, of the sort where nothing connects, nothing relates to reality, nothing quite adds up to anyone outside his head. And you are, for now, outside his head. You’re not brave enough to venture in there yet, to see what has become of his fragile mind. That’ll take great courage, and you are, as ever, the coward.

That’s why he’s stopped hand-cuffing you to the bed, although, to be fair, you were allowing him to do it for his own peace of mind. He stopped a few nights ago, but he still comes by every evening, unlocks your door, greets you like an old friend, and puts the book down on the bedside table. Tonight, you are already in bed. He flashes you a brief, genuine smile as he settles himself in the armchair beside the bed, crossing his legs and shifting until he’s settled.

“Are you sitting comfortably?” he says.

“I’m lying in bed,” you say. “And it’s very comfortable, thank you.”

“Good. Then I shall begin.”

You shut your eyes, lie back, concentrate on his voice. You’ve begun to realise that you need this too, and the very fact that he has stopped cuffing you in at night has made these evenings almost pleasant. He does not, perhaps, trust you yet, but he knows you. He knows you won’t be trying to escape, and he knows that because everything you ever desired is here, within reach. If you wanted, you could reach out and touch him. But again, you are not quite that brave.

“Once upon a time,” he says. His voice is slow, careful, reverberant in the little room. “Once upon a time, there was a planet called the Earth.”

“It’s still there,” you remind him.

“More’s the pity. And don’t interrupt.”

“I’m not.”

“Shush. Once upon a time there was a planet called the Earth, and on that planet there was a little country, in the northern hemisphere, called Scotland. And in this place, many years ago, a passing traveller stopped one night at an inn. The inn was run by a woman of good repute, who was respected and trusted by all in town, so that when she told the traveller a remarkable story, he was most inclined to believe what he heard.”

You realise you are smiling in anticipation. His voice is warm tonight, almost soothing. Other nights it has been a note too high, or a little tense, betraying his anxieties, but not tonight. He sounds confident again. Sure of himself. You’re almost certain that’s a good thing.

“The innkeeper told the traveller about a young man who lived in the town, who had amazing talents bestowed upon him – or so the primitive ape-creatures believed – by fairy folk.”

“Humans,” you murmur. “They’re called humans.”

“I know that. Are you going to be quiet?”

“Alright, alright.”

“The humans of this place believed it was fairies who gave the boy his magical gifts. They couldn’t imagine how else this young man could possibly know the things he knew. And he knew some incredible things, things about the future, about the world, about the strange creatures with whom the humans shared their home.

“The traveller demanded to see the boy, and the woman pointed out of the window to where he stood in the street with a few other humans. So the traveller went out and persuaded the youth to come into the inn with him, which he did. The traveller interviewed him at length, asking questions about his fortune, his family, about everything that he could think of, and the youth gave him an answer to each one.

At length, the traveller came to notice something. The youth was…” he pauses, and in the silence you hear that familiar beat once again. The tapping of his fingers on the bedside table, four times in quick succession. You stare at him, but he is looking beyond you, beyond the room, into something so big you cannot see it. He does not seem to realise his fingers are moving.

“The youth,” he continues, slowly, “was drumming on the tabletop, quietly, with his fingers. Very gently, very quietly, but the traveller noticed and asked if he could beat a drum. ‘Yes,’ said the boy. And he told the traveller that he drummed for a company who met under the great hill outside the town. The traveller asked how on earth they all got under the hill, and the boy responded, simply, that there was a door; a door that led into the great fairy caves under the hill.

“The traveller decided to stay in town until that Thursday night, when the boy claimed he would be going into the hill. He asked if he could accompany the boy, but was met with refusal. Nevertheless, he decided he would follow, and see these fairy caves for himself, and discover the source of the boy’s many talents.

“But the boy seemed to know he was followed, and tried to shake the traveller off. He almost lost him several times, but the man managed to follow the boy right up to the hill, whereupon he vanished through a door, seemingly into the bedrock itself. When the man tried to follow, there was a terrible noise, and the door, along with the youth who knew the future, was gone forever.”

You lie on your back with your eyes open now, staring at his face. He is still cross-legged in the armchair, one hand resting on the red-wrapped book. For the first time, the spine is turned towards you, and you can read the title:

_Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime and Black Hole Thermodynamics._

“I don’t believe you,” you say, quietly.

“It is,” he says, “only a story.”

“Of course.”

“From a book.”

“…Yes.”

He stares at you for a long time. You stare back. Soon, you think, you will try and touch his mind, try and fix him, if it’s possible. Like patching up the Titanic with sticky tape, but you have to try, because fixing him is the only way to fix yourself, and you cannot remain broken forever.

“Doctor,” he says. “I think, tomorrow night, it’s your turn.”

“What?”

“I think I’ve run out of stories. Good ones. So it’s your turn.”

You’re not sure what to make of that. You nod, helplessly. “Alright,” you say. “I’ll tell you one. Tomorrow.”

He smiles, and tugs at the covers, pulling them away from your body, and then he’s clambering in beside you. He’s never done that before, always left after he finished talking, went back to wherever it was he spent the night, on his own, leaving you to sleep. But tonight, he gets right in with you, pulling the covers over you both, curling around you. He puts his arm round your waist, hooks one leg over yours, and you find yourself embracing him, pulling him tight against you. Wrapping him up in your arms as though you think that by holding him, you can protect him from the things that hunt him inside his own mind.

You listen to his breathing as he drifts off to sleep. And you wonder what story you will tell him tomorrow night. And it begins to dawn on you that this is exactly – exactly – what you always wanted. You and him, together, telling each other stories so you don’t have to confront reality. Lying to each other in the dark so you don’t have to look to the truth – that you and him are as doomed as the stars and galaxies to fade and die, unnoticed by the universe, uncared for – unless you can both find it within yourselves to care.

You’ll tell him a story. A love story, because those are the greatest lies of all, or an old Gallifreyan tale, if you can remember how they go. You’ll talk long into the night, trying to fix him from out here so you don’t have to open his mind and step inside. And you know that if you succeed, if you can restore what little sanity he was born with, you’ll lose him again. But that’s alright.

His face is nestled in your chest, and with his eyes closed he looks like an innocent. Another story, and one you will never quite believe. You stroke his hair, touch his skin, rub the pad of your thumb across his lips. Everything is a lie unless you can touch it. At least for tonight, there's one thing you can be certain of.

**Author's Note:**

> The story the Master tells is really "The Fairy Boy of Leith".


End file.
